The Winnowing Fan: Poems on the Great War

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GIVEN BY HELEN F. BRADFORD

MAY 24, 1942

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THE WINNOWING-FAN

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BY THE SAME WRITER

ODES

LONDON VISIONS
ENGLAND AND OTHER POEMS
ETC.

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THE WINNOWING-
FAN : POEMS ON
THE GREAT WAR

BY LAURENCE BINYON

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

MCMXV

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fri . T .E'lrr.AfYOF

GAU.A l£LBr<ADFURDVI

MAY 24, 1942

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CONTENTS

PACE

THE FOURTH OF AUGUST ... 9

STRANGE FRUIT II

THE NEW IDOL ..... I3

THE HARVEST I4

TO THE BELGIANS . . . . 15

LOUVAIN ...... l8

TO GOETHE 20

AT RHEIMS 22

TO THE ENEMY CX)MFLAINING . . 2$

TO WOMEN ^26

FOR THE FALLEN 28

ODE FOR SEPTEMBER . . . . 30

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THE FOURTH OF AUGUST

Now in thy splendour go before us,
Spirit of England, ardent-eyed.
Enkindle this dear earth that bore us.
In the hour of peril purified.

The cares we hugged drop out of vision.
Our hearts with deeper thoughts dilate.
We step from days of sour division
Into the grandeur of our fate.

For us the glorious dead have striven,
They battled that we might be free.
We to their living cause are given ;
We arm for men that are to be.

Among the nations nobliest chartered,
England recalls her heritage.
In her is that which is not bartered.
Which force can neither quell nor cage.

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lo THE FOURTH OF AUGUST

For her immortal stars are burning
With her the hope that's never done.
The seed that's in the Spring's returning.
The very flower that seeks the sun.

She fights the fraud that feeds desire on
Lies, iir a lost to en^v^ of kiB,
The barreif cseed of blood and iron,
Vaitfpinf of Ettape'ir vvoisted vnBt . . .

Endure, O Earth ! and thou, awaken,
Ptoged by iMsi dt«adfal iiinnowiAg^an,.
O wmngeiil, un^lasKaUe, unshalsftft'
Soul of tfvbiefy' suflerkfg man^

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STRANGE FRUIT

This year the grain is heavy-ripe ;
The apple shows a r^dier stripe ;
Never berries so profuse
Blackened wkh so sweet a juice
On facambly hed^eSr summer-dye<L
TheyeUow leaves begin to gUde ;
But Earth in careless lap-ful treasures
Pledge of over-brinuning measures.
As if some rich unwonted zest
Stirred prodigal within her breast.
And now, while plenty's left uncared,
The fruit unplucked, the sickle spared,
Where men go forth to waste and spill.
Toiling to bum, destroy, and kill,
Lo, also side by side with these
Beast-hungers, ravening miseries.
The heart of man has brought to birth
Splendours richer than his earth..
Now in the thunder-hour of fate
Each one is kinder to his mate ;
The surly smile ; the hard forbear ;
There's help and hope for all to share ;

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12 STRANGE FRUIT

And sudden visions of goodwill
Transcending all the scope of ill
Like a glory of rare weather
Link us in common light together,
A clearness of the cleansing sim.
Where none's alone and all are one ;
And touching each a priceless pain
We find our own true hearts again.
No more the easy masks deceive :
We give, we dare, and we believe.

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13

THE NEW IDOL

MAGNiFiCENT the Beast ! Look in the eyes
Of the fell tiger towering on his prey.
Beautiful in his power to pounce and slay
And efiEortless in action. He denies
All but himself. He gloats on his weak prize.
Roaring the anger of wild breath at bay,
Blank anger like an element whose way
Is mere annihilation ! Terrible eyes !

But there is one more to be feared, who can
Escape the prison of his own wrath ; whose will
Lives beyond life ; who smiles with quiet lips ;
Most terrible because most tender, Man, —
Not only uncowed but irresistible
When the cause fires him to the finger-tips.

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14

THE HARVEST

Red impels ooifer OieeeiaAAmgfntiidm,
Proud War-iocds^ctisekASofieQttoiLsai^
Who leare earth's kindly oxips imhaiDcsted
As you havekft the Idndseasof the wise
For facotal saeoace aad far dnmsy lies.
The spavD of lOfiolQaQe by inraggmg ied.
With paver and fraud m faith's and honour's

stead,
Accounting these but good stupidities ;

You reap a heavier harvest than you know.

Disnaturing a nation^ you have thieved

Her name, her patient genius, while you thought

To fool the world and master it. You sought

Reality. It comes in hate and woe.

In the end you also shall not be deceived.

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15

TO THE BELGIANS

O RACE that Caesar knew.
That won stem Roman praise,
What land not envies you
The laurel of these days ?

You built your cities rich
Around each towered hall, —
Without, the statued niche,
Withip, the pictured wall.

Your ship-throfl^ged vJiarves^ yoiat mMxis
With gorgepiis Veaioa vkd.
Peace and her tanom Mft»
Were y«!»pri» : tbaiigh tide 4» t»<fe

Of Europe's battle scom^ged
Black field and reddened soil.
From blood and smok« emerged
Peace and her fruitful toil.

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i6 TO THE BELGIANS

Yet when the challenge rang,
" The War-Lord comes ; give room ! '
Fearless to arms you sprang
Against the odds of doom.

Like your own Damian
Who sought that lepers' isle
To die a simple man
For men with tranquil smile.

So strong in faith you dared

Defy the giant, scorn

Ignobly to be spared.

Though trampled, spoiled, and torn.

And in your faith arose
And smote, and smote again.
Till those astonished foes
Reeled from their mounds of slain,

The faith that the free soul.
Untaught by force to quail.
Through fire and dirge and dole
Prevails and shall prevail.

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TO THE BELGIANS

Still for your frontier stands
The host that knew no dread.
Your little, stubborn land's
Nameless, inunortal dead.

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i8

LOUVAIN

To Dom Bruno Destrie^ 0,S,B.
I

It was the very heart of Peace that thrilled
In the deep minster-bell's wide-throbbing sound
When over old roofs evening seemed to build.
Security this world has never found.

Your cloister looked from Caesar's rampart, high
O'er the fair city : clustered orchard-trees
Married their murmur with the dreaming sky.
It was the house of love and living peace.

And there we talked of youth's delightful years
In Italy, in England. Now, O Friend,
I know not if I speak to living ears
Or if upon you too is come the end.

Peace is on Louvain ; dead peace of spUt blood
Upon the mounded ashes where she stood.

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LOUVAIN 19

n

But from that blood, those ashes there arose
Not hoped-for terror cowering as it ran,
But divine anger flaming upon those
Defamers of the very name of man,

Abortions of their blind hyena-creed.
Who for " protection " of their battle-host
Against the unarmed of them they had made to

bleed.
Whose hearts they had tortured to the utter-
most

Without a cause, past pardon, fired and tore
The towers of fame and beauty, while they shot
And butchered the defenceless in the door.
But History shall hang them high, to rot

Unburied, in the face of times unborn.
Mankind's abomination and last scorn.

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20

TO GOETHE

Goethe, who saw and who foretold

A world revealed
New-springing from its ashes old

On Valmy field.

When Prussia's sullen hosts retired

Before the advance
Of ragged, starved, but freedom-fired

Soldiers of France ;

If still those dear, Oljnnpian eyes

Through smoke and rage
Your ancient Europe scrutinize.

What think you. Sage ?

Are these the armies of the Light

That seek to drown
The light of lands where freedom's fight

Has won renown ?

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TO GOETHE a

Will they blot also out your name

Because you praise
All works of men that shrine the flame

Of beauty's wasrs.

Wherever men have proved them great.

Nor, drunk with pride.
Saw but a single swollen State

And naught beside.

Nor dreamed of drilling Europe's mind

With threat and blow
The way professors have designed

Genius should go ?

Or shall a people rise at length

And see and shake
The fetters from its giant strength.

And grandly break

This pedantry of feud and force

To man untrue
Thundering and blundering on its course

To death and rue ?

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22

AT RHEIMS

Their hearts were burning in their breasts

Too hot for curse or cries.
They stared upon the towers that burned

Before their smarting eyes.

There where, since France began to be,

Anointed kings knelt down,
There where the Maid, the unafraid.

Received her vision's crown.

The senseless shell with nightmare scream

Burst, and fair fragments fell
Tom from their centuries of peace

As by the rage of hell.

What help for wrath, what use for wail ?

Before a dumb despair
All ancient, high, heroic France

Seemed binning, bleeding there.

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AT RHEIMS 23

Within, the pillars soar to gloom

Lit by the glimmering Rose ;
Spirits of beauty shrined in stone

Afar from mortal woes.

Hearing not, though their haunted shade

Is stricken, and all around
With splintering flash and brutal crash

The ghostly aisles resound.

And there, upon the pavement stretched.

The German wounded groan
To see the dropping flames of death

And feel the shells their own.

Too fierce the fire ! Helped by their foes

They stagger out to air.
The green-gray coats are seen, are known

Through all the crowded square.

Ah, now for vengeance I Deep the groan :

A death-knell ! Quietly
Soldiers unsUng their rifles, lift

And aim with steady eye.

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24 AT RHEIMS

But sudden in the hush between
Death and the doomed^ there stands

Against those levelled guns a priest,
Gentle, with outstretched hands.

Be not as guitty as they I he cries . . .

Each lets his weapon fall,
As if a vision showed him France

And vengeance vain and small.

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25

TO THE ENEMY COMPLAINING

Be ruthless, then ; scorn slaves of scruple ; avow
The blow, planned with such patience, that you

deal
So terribly ; hack on, and care not how
The innocent fall ; live out your faith of steel.

Then you speak speech that we can comprehend.
It cries from the unpitied blood you spill.
And so we stand against you, and to the end
Flame as one man, the weapon of one will.

But when your lips usurp the loyal phrase
Of honour, querulously voluble
Of " chivalry " and " kindness," and you praise
What you despise for weakness of the fool.

Then the gorge rises. Bleat to dupe the dead !
The wolf beneath the sheepskin drips too red.

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26

TO WOMEN

Your hearts are lifted up, your hearts
That have foreknown the utter price.
Your hearts bum upward like a flame
Of splendour and of sacrifice.

For you, you too, to battle go.

Not with the marching dnrnis and cheers

But in the watch of solitude

And through the boundless night of fears.

Swift, swifter than those hawks of war.
Those threatening wings that pulse the air.
Far as the vanward ranks are set.
You are gone before them, you are there I

And not a shot comes blind with death
And not a stab of steel is pressed
Home, but invisibly it tore
And entered first a woman's breast.

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TO WOMEN 27

Amid the thunder of the guns.

The Ughtnings of the lance and sword

Your hope, your dread, your throbbing pride.

Your infinite passion is outpoured

From hearts that are as one high heart
Withholding naught from doom and bale
Bumingly offered up, — to bleed.
To bear, to break, but not to fail !

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28

FOR THE FALLEN

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her

children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her

spirit.
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and

royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were

young.
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and

aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds

uncounted.
They fell with their faces to the foe.

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FOR THE FALLEN 29

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow
old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years con-
demn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades

again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home ;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time ;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes pro-
found.

Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,

To the innermost heart of their own land they
are known

As the stars are known to the Night ;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are

dust
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain.
As the stars that are starry in the time of our

darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

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30

ODE FOR SEPTEMBER

On that long day when England held her breath,

Suddenly gripped at heart

And called to choose her part

Between her loyal soul and luring sophistries,

We watched the wide, green-bosomed land

beneath
Driven and tumultuous skies ;
We watched the volley of white shower after

shower
Desolate with fierce drops the f aUen flower ;
And still the rain's retreat
Drew glory on its track,
And still, when all was darkness and defeat.
Upon dissolving cloud the bow of peace shone

back.
So in our hearts was alternating beat.
With very dread elate ;
And Earth dyed all her day in colours of our

fate.

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ODE FOR SEPTEMBER 31

n

But oh, how faint the image we foretold

In fancies of our fear

Now that the truth is here !

And we awake from dream yet think it still a

dream.
It bursts our thoughts with more than thought

can hold ;
And more than human seem
These agonies of conflict ; Elements
At war I yet not with vast indifference
Casually crushing ; nay,
It is as if were hurled
Lightnings that murdered, seeking out their

prey;
As if an earthquake shook to chaos half the

world.
Equal in purpose as in power to slay ;
And thunder sttumed our ears
Streaming in rain of blood on torrents that are

tears.

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32 ODE FOR SEPTEMBER

III

Around a planet rolls the drum's alarm.

Far where the summer snules

Upon the utmost isles.

Danger is treading silent as a fever-breath.

Now in the North the secret waters arm ;

Under the wave is Death :

They fight in the very air, the virgin air.

Hovering on fierce wings to the onset : there

Nations to battle stream ;

Earth smokes and cities bum ;

Heaven thickens in a storm of shells that scream;

The long lines shattering break, turn and again

return ;
And still across a continent they teem.
Moving in mjrriads ; more
Than ranks of flesh and blood, but soul with

soul at war I

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ODE FOR SEPTEMBER 33

IV

All the hells are awa^e : the old serpents hiss

From dungeons of the mind ;

Fury of hate bom blind.

Madness and lust, despairs and treacheries un-
clean;

They shudder up from man's most dark abyss.

But there are heavens serene

That answer strength with strength; they
stand secure ;

They arm us from within, and we endure.

Now are the brave more brave.

Now is the cause more dear.

The more the tempests of the darkness rave

As, when the sun goes down, the shining stars
are clear.

Radiant the spirit rushes to the grave.

Glorious it is to live

In such an hour, but life is lovelier yet to give*

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34 ODE FOR SEPTEMBER

Alas ! what comfort for the uncomforted.

Who knew no cause, nor sought

Glory or gain ? they are taught.

Homeless in homes that bum, what human

hearts can bear.
The children stiunble over their dear dead.
Wandering they know not where.
And there is one who simply fights, obeys.
Tramps, till he loses count of nights and days,
Tired, mired in dust and sweat,
Far from his own hearth-stone ;
A common man of common earth, and yet
The battle-winner he, a man of no renown,
Where " food for cannon " pa3^ a nation's

debt.
This is Earth's hero, whom
The pride of Empire tosses careless to his

doom.

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ODE FOR SEPTEMBER 35

VI

Now will we speak, while we have eyes for tears

And fibres to be wrung

And in our mouths a tongue.

We will bear wrongs untold but will not only

bear;
Not only bear, but build through striving years
The answer of our prayer.
That whosoever has the noble name
Of man, shall not be yoked to alien shame ;
That life shall be indeed
Life, not permitted breath
Of spirits wrenched and forced to others' need.
Robbed of their nature's joy and free alone in

death.
The world shall travail in that cause, shall bleed.
But deep in hope it dwells
Until the morning break which the long night

foretells.

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ODE FOR SEPTEMBER

vn

O children filled with your own airy glee

Or with a grief that comes

So swift, so strange, it numbs,

If on your growing youth this page of terror bite,

Harden not then your senses, feel and be

The promise of the light.

O heirs of Man, keep in your hearts not less

The divine torrents of his tenderness I

'Tis ever war : but rust

Grows on the sword ; the tale

Of earth is strewn with empires heaped in dust

Because they dreamed that force should punish
and prevail.

The will to kindness lives beyond their lust ;

Their grandeurs are undone :

Deep, deep within man's soul are all his vic-
tories won.

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Thanks are due to the editors of the
Tifnes, the Pall Mall Gazette, the
Nation, the Spectator, the Sphere, the
Westminster Gazette, and the Fortnightly
Review for permission to reprint poems
originally contributed to those peri-
odicals.

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PKINTBD BY

WILLUM BRSMDON AMD SON, LTD.

PLYUOUTB

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